Wings

Wings is the film that won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture, and it remains the only fully silent film to take the top prize. Directed by William A. Wellman, a former World War I fighter pilot, it follows two young American aviators who enlist in the Army Air Corps and become combat pilots in France, bound by friendship and divided by their love for the same woman. Clara Bow plays the hometown girl waiting back home. The aerial dogfight sequences were shot with real planes and real pilots, hundreds of them, and they still rank among the most thrilling ever filmed. Gary Cooper appears briefly in an early role that helped launch his career. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.